Things that I think are helping: There are restaurants in my town offering free meals to kids and reduced-price meals for adults. The food drive we contributed to on Sunday was a huge success - the pictures they posted showed a tremendous outpouring of support.

And now at least people will get half of what they should be getting, rather than nothing, as a court ordered the funds to be released.

I'm still having a lot of anxiety about people with food insecurity, but I feel like at least where I am, people are working together to try to help. That gives me hope.

I just kind of freaked out when our local pantry said "We need food more than we need money right now." I have never seen them say that before. And when I went to their site to see what was most needed, they had a huge pop-up saying it was EVERYTHING. That made me so afraid for folks around here.

But I think it will be a little better this week. We have several free meals provided by churches throughout the week already, and from what I saw at the food drive, there are a lot of folks stepping up to provide food for people who need it. I am not as afraid now that people will literally starve to death, or that children will miss important nutrients during their development that will affect them forever.

Our election is Tuesday and I'm really hoping that my favorites win their spots on the school board and city commission. We don't have anything else on the ballot this time, no Representatives or Senators. Just local stuff, but that is vital and every vote matters. I hope my town will turn out and make some choices that will help the most people. We have (what I would consider) a problem with landlords in this town, and we also have commissioners who keep giving out sweet tax deals to businesses who leave as soon as those tax deals expire - we need some change here.

#uspol